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3D Printers - Who has them?

I feel like we're a little behind on the game just now getting one, but it's cool to finally have a few in the building. We have a really awesome Mechanical Engineering intern who has been spending a lot of his time reworking our fixturing/tooling/etc and they've been very (bigly?) helpful.

Who here has their own and what are some cool laser related (or not) project's you've done?

I just massively modified a Makergear M2 to work as a tissue growth substrate printer.

The hot FDM extruder had to go and was replaced with something um, proprietary. In this case we jet out a bio-polymer monomer mixed with Sodium Alginate, which gets cured by a light spray of Calcium Chloride. The alginate gets jetted onto a plate at -30'C to freeze it before we cure it.

Of course the standard printer OS was a bit unfriendly to all the new controls needed, so we're running GRBL, which is wonderful, but very basic. Makergear bent to over backwards to help us, and the next stage is to add an industrial inkjet nozzle to precisely distribute groups of cells onto the 3D model.

Our other printer in the department is a M2 assigned to the department robotics club, and we have something like 130 printers on campus.

If you think you have not had something similar to Sodium Alginate with Calcium Chloride in your life, well, you have probably ate it, if you like "gummy" or rubbery candies. I'd rather have the ones made from Alginate then the ones made from gelatin from pork fat scraps...

Our mix is very similar but more porous, with a much higher viscosity.

Despite working on this for a year, I feel like I know next to nothing on 3D printing.

We mainly use it for testing prototypes before we have them made in metal. However any student or staff member can go to the University Library and have small objects made for free.

Steve

Last edited by mixedgas; 06-21-2019 at 07:57.

Qui habet Christos, habet Vitam!
I should have rented the space under my name for advertising.
When I still could have...

Start with "Submergence Curing" and work your way up to printing on a cold plate via thin needle. Make damn sure you wash off the CaCl2, it tastes sour. It does not take much CaCl2 to initiate curing, and sometimes all you need to do is cure the outside.
`https://eatitnoworeatitlater.com/2015/08/01/science-and-gummy-worms/
`
Googling "Molecular Gastronomy" and Sodium Alginate gets you started.
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You can also rig up a syringe drive in place of the fDM extruder, and 3D print cookies, sugar structures, sugar candy, cake icing, chocolate, and other stuff(tm)
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You can buy the 3D Pancake printer as a toy grade COTS unit.
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The extension for "food drive" is in stored in most Rambo cards, but commented out for compile.
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In our case we have a fancy air driven delivery method I can't go into details about yet, until its published. There is a trick to it involving vacuum being applied to stop overshoot.
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Oh, What have I done.. Don't need any weight gain at Pangolin, I need you folks ALIVE.
`
Steve

Last edited by mixedgas; 06-21-2019 at 11:18.

Qui habet Christos, habet Vitam!
I should have rented the space under my name for advertising.
When I still could have...

I have a stratsys mojo fdm and a form1 sla. I get a lot of projects off thingaverse. Biggest project I’ve done is a fully functional radial engine, some spot lights, parts for spectrometers....then I got bored. I like to print math shapes. I made some that when illuminated make shapes like infinite grids.

i want to print in support only and make plaster molds for making metal parts. People burn pla out. Why? Just dissolve it in water. Cured plaster will be fine.

the printer I want is the prusa mkIII with the multimaterial attachment.

The problem with the stratsys is the material is expensive and proprietary. The Prussia is open source.
the form one sucks. I hope the new one is better. Better be for the price! Sla is still a sticky mess. I like fdm for now. Want sintered metal some day desktop for home. Yea dreaming now.